Tag Archives: smoking

Do we really need a law telling motorists they can't pet their dogs while driving? Nanny state bureaucrats in Troy, Mich., think so ...

One city’s efforts to ensure motorists stay focused on the road ahead seems like a bit of overkill, but we’ll let you be the judge:

Bagel-chomping motorists prone to texting while driving beware: Police in a Detroit suburb have officially begun looking for you.

Troy police began enforcing the city’s new driving while distracted ordinance, which went into effect Saturday.

The ordinance passed last year in the city about 15 miles north of Detroit aims to crack down on distracted drivers whose bad behind-the-wheel behavior includes using a cell phone, eating, grooming and interacting with pets. Motorists face fines from $75 to $200.

The newly enacted law targets motorists for fines if they “temporarily remove both hands from the full grip of the wheel.” While lighting and smoking cigarettes is not specifically cited in the law as a violation, “[v]irtually any activity could be included at the discretion of an officer,” writes the Detroit Examiner’s Richard Weaver.

Read the tagline. It's not just a catchy slogan; it's how bureaucrats like Greg Mertzig think of themselves.

A nanny state bureaucrat in Superior, Wisc. is equating the lure of Happy Meal toys to candy cigarettes, claiming both types of novelty items encourage “lethal habits” that need to be controlled “at a very young age.”

“It was a marketing tactic by the tobacco industry to get kids to think it was cool to smoke at a very young age, develop these lethal habits at a very young age,” says City Councilor Greg Mertzig. “To a lesser extent, these toys in their Happy Meals kind of do the same thing. They reward kids and get them to think that it’s the okay thing to do at a very young age.”

Mertzig, an Iraq and Afghanistan war vet, told Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) that he’s firing at will upon fast food restaurants that, he says, are making America’s future soldiers too fat to fight. And, he claims his constituents support his efforts to determine how and what parents feed their own children:

“They don’t meet the physical requirements to join the military so there was an argument that it was actually a national security issue. And so through the dialogue with my constituents we decided and I decided that day that we needed to do something.”

Mertzig’s proposed ordinance would “ban free toys in meals with more than 600 calories, 10% fat and can’t have any trans fat. It could also require fruits or vegetables and whole grain foods,” reports WPR’s Mike Simonson.

The Happy Meal toy ban will be offered to the city council on Dec. 7. If Mertzig musters enough support, it will be voted on by the the council members at a later date.

Big government bureaucrats in Santa Clara County, Calif., recently robbed kids of their beloved Happy Meal toys and today they came back for seconds, this time, bullying smokers and punishing tobacco retailers for selling a product that is still legal for adult purchase in all 50 states.

Supervisor Ken “Unhappy Meal” Yeager and his merry band of nanny state ninnies on Tuesday passed an ordinance that slaps tobacco retailers with an annual $425 fine vending permit fee. New retailers are also required to pay a one-time “permit application” fine fee, the San Jose Mercury reports.

The Board of Supervisors claims these new fines fees were established to extinguish teenage smoking, despite the fact that it is already illegal in all 50 states for tobacco retailers to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18.

On Nov. 10, the Nanny State Liberation Front was among the first to report that Santa Clara County was “targeting smokers in their own apartments, condominiums and townhouses.” The American Lung Association commended the county for its’ ‘successful’ month-long assault on smokers’ rights, declaring their fascist crackdowns “among the toughest in the nation.”

Next up, Yeager & Co. will float a ban targeting flavored tobacco products that will likely include cigars and pipe tobacco. Will you fight back or watch another freedom enjoyed by responsible adults go up in smoke?

Contact Ken Yeager on Facebook (click “Send Ken a Message” below his picture) or get in touch with him the old-fashioned way:

Lawmakers and casino industry officials agree: Illinois’ nearly three-year-old smoking ban has cost the state $500 million in lost revenue as smokers travel across state lines to light-up and gamble to their hearts’ delight.

On Tuesday, a measure to exempt the state’s casinos from the smoking ban passed the House Executive Committee by a 9-1 vote, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

HB 1846, House Amendment 1 provides that smoking would be re-allowed in the state’s casinos “if smoking is not banned in gaming facilities located in the nearest neighboring state.” It continues, “This exemption shall no longer apply to a gaming facility on and after the date that smoking is banned in gaming facilities located in the nearest neighboring state.”

That said, Indiana State Rep. Charlie Brown (D-Gary) said last week he will offer a bill in the coming legislative session that would ban public smoking without an exemption for any establishment, including casinos.

The full House of Representatives will now consider the measure and determine if it moves on to the Senate or goes up in smoke. If you live in Illinois and support re-allowing smoking in casinos, contact your state representative.

And, if you live in Indiana, you’ve been warned. There’s a smoking ban smoldering in State Rep. Charlie Brown’s office. It’s up to you whether it catches fire or gets extinguished.

Anyone else think it’s odd that The Huffington Post finds humor in a comedian’s rant against government intrusion in citizens’ lives? In and of itself, that’s funny enough, but watch Lewis Black systematically dismantle the nanny state with his sarcasm and wit if your pants are still dry.

Overlawyered.com’s Walter Olsen hits another one out of the ballpark today with his commentary in The Washington Times spotlighting the “growing aggressiveness of ‘public health’ officialdom in pushing scare campaigns about everyday consumption risks:”

The Puritans held that reminders of mortality had an edifying effect on the living, which is why they sometimes would illustrate even literature for young children with drawings of death’s-heads and skeletons. Something of the same spirit seems to animate our ever-advancing movement for mandatory public health. The Food and Drug Administration has just floated the idea of requiring cigarette packs to carry rotating pictures that would include corpses – yes, actual corpses – as well as close-ups of grotesque medical disorders that can afflict smokers.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s superactivist Health Department has begun public ad campaigns about the health risks of everyday foods, including a controversial YouTube video portraying soda drinkers as pouring globs of shimmery yellow fat into their open mouths and – just out – an ad showing an innocent-looking can of chicken-with-rice soup as bursting with dangerous salt. Whether or not you live in New York, you’re likely to be seeing more of this sort of thing because the mayor’s crew tends to set the pace for activist public-health efforts nationwide; the Obama administration, for example, picked Bloomberg lieutenant Thomas R. Frieden to head the influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why should government use our own tax dollars to propagandize and hector us about the risks of salted snacks, chocolate milk or the other temptations of today’s supermarket aisle? The Bloomberg-Obama camp seems to feel that government dietary advice is superior to other sources of information we might draw on because (1) it’s more objective, independent and pure of motive and (2) it can draw on better science …

Ken Yeager is on a crusade to prevent citizens from harming themselves.

The originator of the nation’s first Happy Meal toy ban is now targeting smokers in their own apartments, condominiums and townhouses. Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager declared his intrusive anti-smoking initiative makes this ‘progressive’ California suburb, once again, a “national leader” in keeping citizens safe from themselves:

“The residents of this county deserve strong policies to safeguard their health,” said Board President Ken Yeager, who brought the ordinance to the Board of Supervisors. “These ordinances make Santa Clara County a national leader in blocking tobacco sales to minors and protecting residents from secondhand smoke.”

In addition to an ordinance prohibiting smokers from lighting-up within the confines of their own private residences, Yeager and his nanny state cronies also outlawed smoking at outdoor dining facilities, motels and hotels, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

A new licensing tax that would force tobacco retailers to pony-up “$425 a year for a license, plus a one-time $340 application fee” will be voted on at the board’s Nov. 23 meeting.

Do you support or oppose Ken “Unhappy Meal” Yeager’s continued efforts to dictate to citizens how they should best lead their own lives?

Share your thoughts with Ken Yeager on Facebook (click “Send Ken a Message” below his picture) or contact him the old-fashioned way: